Julie & Julia is a 2009 American comedy-drama that uses a creative lens to entwine and retell two true stories. The film compares and contrasts Julie Powel, a young writer who, in the year 2002, lives in NY and works in a cubicle answering phone calls all day, and Julia Childs, an American housewife who moves with her husband who is assigned to work in France in the 1950’s. Initially bored at home, Julia makes history as she decides to spend her time learning to be a professional French cook. She eventually collaborates on the writing of a comprehensive cookbook, which also serves as the first French cookbook for American women. Julie goes through a similar transformation as she fills the emptiness of her life by writing a blog detailing her 365-day journey as she cooks her way through all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering The Art of French Cooking.
Both of their stories are focused on their own personal identity. They are both confronted with a lack of purpose in their life and they fill their gap with cooking. For them, cooking is filled with excitement and challenge and the more they become obsessed the more it defines them. When Julie begins to have a large following of readers and begins to feel overwhelmed by her full time job and self imposed cooking challenges she neglects her husband in favor of food. Eventually, she strikes a balance between the two and achieves success by identifying herself through both her cooking and her relationship with her husband. After forming a balanced identity Julie continues her undertaking and achieves publicity, fame, and monetary success once she is written about on the front page of the NY Times.
Julia also defines herself through food and as Julia’s husband mentions, if he would like to see his wife he must enter the kitchen. She works very hard to become a proper chief and later spends many years of her life writing her comprehensive cookbook. When her efforts appear for naught, as the publishers believe her book is too expansive to be printed, she becomes devastated. She identified herself through her work and with the apparent failure she seemed to be without an identity once again. Fortunately, with the encouragement of her supportive husband, she moved on and continued her culinary pursuits in other manners. Eventually, Julia was contacted by a different publisher and offered an even sweeter deal. They published her masterpiece and Julia found her identity through food in both her private and the public world.
While at times the movie seemed a bit discontinuous, as the scenes oscillated between the two plots and some ideas, sometimes somewhat irrelevant, were introduced but not developed, overall the plots were paralleled very nicely and imbued with both entertainment and suspense. The juxtaposition of conceptually linked scenes between the stories highlighted the similarities between the ways Julie & Julia struggled, developed, and addressed their own personal identities. Food is the medium through which each understands their identity, but it the plot it serves other roles as well.
The movie transforms food into more then a hobby, job, or even the defining feature of their identities, as food becomes a tool for connection. Not only do characters bond while working in the kitchen, eating together at a table, or by talking about food, but also they bond over space and time via food. As Julie states, she can feel Julia’s presence in the kitchen with her, and can learn from not only as a chief, but also as a moral role model. Even though the end of the movie questions Julia’s role in this one sided relationship, it also points out that the bond is nonetheless still fully existent for Julie. Food becomes more then just a purpose, but also an identity, a way in which they can bond to others, and a way in which they can make their mark on the world against all other odds.
The actors did a fantastic job, and truly seemed like people, although in a couple scenes Julia enthusiastic personality made her appear a bit unrealistic. In both tribute and criticism, the movie left the viewers wanting to know more about their stories, as it interested viewers in the main story although it did not seem to tie together all the different parts conclusively. Because the movie was telling two true stories, at points it seemed a bit like a documentary and compounded with a few seemingly irrelevant scenes the movie became longer then necessary. While the movie lacked a true dramatic climax, it still left a very positive impression on its viewers. I would therefore rate the movie as a 3.5 and maybe even a 4 out of 5 for all those who have the time to watch it fully.
